Command Has Much Ground To Cover Before Ready For Real Test

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE — Napoleon once cut short a long recitation about a young general's skills with a wave of his hand:

''I don't care about all that,'' he said. ''I just want to know if he's lucky.''

So far, at least, the head of the Special Operations Command, Gen. James Lindsay, would qualify under Bonaparte's standard for military success.

Despite hostilities in the Mideast and tensions on several fronts in Central America, Lindsay's men have not been sent into the kind of headline- grabbing international incident that would severely test his embryonic command's tentative gains.

Although progress has been made in the year since his job was created, Lindsay acknowledges there is an enormous amount of work to be done.

''One of the problems is the timing of the creation of the command, coming as it did at the tail end of the Reagan defense buildup,'' when service infighting for decreasing amounts of money is even more bitter than usual, he said.

Democratic Congressman Earl Hutto of Panama City, who played a leading role in the fight to create the command, said forming the new unit from scratch ''is a tremendous task'' that ''so far has been handled very well.'' But he added that problems remain to get the unit off ''the bottom rung.''

In a recent interview, Lindsay outlined the barriers that still separate his command from the status of readiness for war.

-- Airlift: Of more than 23,300 U.S. military aircraft, Lindsay has 32 to get his men where they are needed in time to be effective. Most of those airplanes and helicopters are 15 to 20 years old and are plagued by mechanical problems.

''My number one need right now is the means of infiltrating and exfiltrating my people,'' Lindsay said.

-- Budget: This year, special operations was supposed to get $2.9 billion -- less than 1 percent of the total defense budget -- to train and equip the 40,000 men and women of the command, half of whom are in reserve units. Earlier this year, in what has been described as the Pentagon's customary disdain for special operations, the Defense Department tried to meet a mandatory 10 percent cut in its budget by slashing 33 percent of the money earmarked for special operations.

''I have some real gunbattles going on over resources,'' Lindsay said.

-- Command and Control: Although the individual services historically have placed low priority on their special operations units, they refused to relinquish control of them until ordered to do so last year by Congress.

Several civilian and military experts on special operations pointed to Lindsay's experience with the Navy as a prime example of the kinds of hair- pulling over command authority that occupies much of the general's time.

In March, nearly a year after the move was ordered, Lindsay finally got clear and uncontested command of the Navy's special operations forces, the SEALS. Until then, the Navy simply refused to relinquish authority.

''They act almost like an independent unit and have a great reluctance to have anybody command their troops who doesn't wear a blue suit,'' one of Lindsay's top staffers said. The issue was resolved only after Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci directly ordered the Navy to hand over control of the SEALS.

Now that it has been accomplished, Lindsay said, ''One of my primary jobs is visiting other commanders to break down those walls and convert them to special ops believers.''

-- Lack of policy: The continuing lack of clear priorities is widely seen as a significant impediment to the command's efficiency. Congress requires the Pentagon to file an annual report about special operations. The last one was branded as ''inadequate'' by one key defense analyst.

''It the Pentagon report never relates requirements in men and equipment to threats and policies in priority,'' John Collins recently testified before a congressional committee.

He and others say that until the command gets clear mission priorities from Washington it cannot efficiently allocate resources to perform specific kinds of missions.

-- Training: Each of the three services has its own special operations schools, with vastly differing curricula and methods of instruction.

''I'm going to change the schools to a unified program . . . to improve on inter-operability'' between services, Lindsay said. He pointed to the consolidation of all Army and Air Force scuba training under the Navy as an example. ''It's going to give a lot of people heartburn, but that's the way we're going to do it.''

In his efforts to correct those and other deficiencies, Lindsay enjoys the strong support of Capitol Hill. Many agreed with Hutto who, after itemizing the gains and losses to date, said, ''Our hope is just to have them ready when they are needed.''